Frank looked intensely disgusted: he had brought no hacks to town, and if he had, would never have proposed to ride with his lady-love in such an off-hand way. Even the Major opened his eyes wider than usual, and gave an extra twirl to his moustaches; but “Mount” rattled on, nothing daunted: “We shall have Lacquers here directly. I met him as I drove up Bond Street, coming out of Storr and Mortimer’s, and I taxed him on the spot with the accusation that he was going to be married. He couldn’t stand the test, Miss Kettering! he blushed--actually blushed--and tried to get rid of me by an assurance that he was very busy, and that we should meet again in the Park. But I know better; he’s coming here, I can take my oath of it. His hair is curled in five rows, and he never wears more than four, save for particular occasions. He is very fidgety about his ‘chevelure,’ ‘_his_ chevalier,’ he calls it; and went the other night to hear ‘The Barbiere,’ as he himself acknowledged, ‘to get a wrinkle, you know, about dressing and shaving and all that.’” Blanche laughed in spite of herself; and Frank, seizing his hat in ill-concealed vexation, bade her a hurried farewell, and rushed out of the house, just as the redoubtable Lacquers made his appearance, “got up,” as Lord Mount Helicon had observed, with the greatest magnificence, and fully resolved in his own mind to push the siege briskly with the heiress, and at least to lose no ground in her good graces for want of attention to the duties, or rather, we should say, the pleasures of the toilette. Poor Frank was very wretched as he stalked down the sunshiny street, and almost vowed he would never enter _that_ house again. He felt a void at his heart that quite startled him. He had no idea he was so far gone. For a time he believed himself really and utterly miserable; nor did the reflection that such a feeling was a bitter satire on his boasted strength of mind--on that intellectual training of which he was so proud--serve to administer much consolation. Like the ruined gamester, who “Damned the poor link-boy that called him a duke,” Frank felt inclined to quarrel with the world in general, and buttoned his coat with savage energy when the poor crossing-sweeper held out her toil-worn hand for a penny. He relented too, and gave her money, and felt ashamed that he should have thought for an instant of visiting his own afflictions on that hard-working creature, the more so as a sailor-looking man in front of him had evidently given a trifle to the poor industrious woman. Frank thought he recognised those broad shoulders, that large, loose frame and rolling gait; in another moment he was alongside Hairblower, and clasping the delighted seaman’s hand with a warmth and cordiality by no means less vigorously returned.